My aim has been, not only to go once more through the task of Albert Durer, but to execute it also on an extended scale. - Adolphe Quetelet

We might even predict annually how many individuals will stain their hands with the blood of their fellow-men, how many will be forgers, how many will deal in poison, pretty nearly in the same way as we may foretell annual births and deaths.

I am less desirous to explain phenomena than to establish their existence.

But is the anatomy of man not a more painful science still?—that science which leads us to dip our hands into the blood of our fellow-beings to pry with impassible curiosity into parts and organs which once palpitated with life? And yet who dreams this day of raising his voice against the study? Who does not applaud, on the contrary, the numerous advantages which it has conferred on humanity? The time is come for studying the moral anatomy of man also, and for uncovering its most afflicting aspects, with the view of providing remedies.